


Channeling the Dark Side

by Jade_Dragoness



Series: Slow and Steady Series [6]
Category: The Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
Genre: A prepared wizard is the most dangerous wizard, Don't Kidnap the Wizard, Gen, Kidnapping, M/M, Marcone doesn't actually appear, Mobsters, Post 'Small Favor', Scary!Harry, no beta we die like Wardens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:20:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25891993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jade_Dragoness/pseuds/Jade_Dragoness
Summary: Of all the potential trouble Harry had considered facing once he finally gave in and asked Marcone if he wanted that date yet, he hadn't expected getting kidnapped by Marcone's enemies before even date one. What the hell.
Relationships: Harry Dresden/Johnny Marcone
Series: Slow and Steady Series [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/8004
Comments: 34
Kudos: 243





	1. Chapter 1

In all honesty, even knowing I was thinking about literally climbing into bed with the mob (or to be more exact one very specific mob boss who I was still _not_ working for and never planning on changing my mind about it) I wasn’t actually expecting to get drawn into the crime side of Chicago life before I’d even actually plucked up the courage and asked Marcone out on that date he’d made clear he wanted.

What can I say, Marcone has a damned scary tight grip on the criminals in Chicago so I didn’t occur to to me to worry about it.

I know. I _know._

It’s wildly stupid to the point of approaching ostrich head in the sand levels of ignoring danger. But when you’re used to worrying about slavering ghouls wanting to devour your hot steaming entrails, or all types of vampires potentially attacking at any moment with everything from narcotic saliva to car bombs, or, hell’s bells, even demons with fanatical vanilla mortals who understand how magic works and how to kill you even when you’re a badass spell-slinging wizard there’s just not much to get excited about at the thought of some wiseguy with no clue about magic getting in your face.

Even when he backed it up with a huge gun – clearly overcompensating for something – and had brought along a half-dozen burly friends who all pointed automatic guns at me before they grabbed me, took away my blasting rod, staff and gun, cuffed me, blindfolded me and threw me into a nearby idling black van which all but screaming ‘Kidnapping-In-Process’ if anyone had so much as glanced in our direction.

I wasn’t too worried. Okay, that’s a lie. I was rather worried but I was prepared for this. And there’s nothing more dangerous on the planet than a wizard who has had the time to prepare various magical means of attack.

Okay, let me explain. _I_ may not have been too concerned about this happening but I was friends with people who where a helluva lot smarter than me. Especially Murphy, who kicked my ass and made me sit down and plan out what I would do when – after I finally got the balls to ask Marcone out on that date he was so clearly angling for – I got myself painted as a target of kidnapping by Marcone’s enemies.

She was the one who’d pointed out that it was inevitable. No matter how much I intended to keep my nose away from Marcone’s “business” – yes, I’m making air quotes, deal with it – they wouldn’t be returning the courtesy and staying away from me.

Not only was Gentleman John Marcone a top dog in the underworld, he controlled a vast criminal empire so large that his decisions had a global impact on the world of crime (which boggled my mind when I first learned how extensive his reach actually was). Which meant there were _always_ challengers, either attacking or lying in wait to attack. And then there were the ambitious among his own men who wouldn’t hesitate to carve a path for power through Marcone’s flesh if he gave them an opening.

And that siege against his defenses was _never_ going to stop. Maybe, maybe when he was dead.

If I entered the picture as his arm candy (as Murphy insisted on calling me over my sputtering objections) that would make me fair game in the minds of those criminals. Marcone had a terrifying reputation of having zero known exploitable weaknesses. But as far as those guys looking to tear down Gentleman Johnny Marcone were concerned, especially to those who were paying attention to how unsubtle he’d been acting in regards to me over the past several months, _I_ had a large arrow hovering above my head with the words ‘Marcone’s Achilles Heel’ blinking on and off in red neon.

Knowing Murphy had a point, even if I’d grumbled over how I hadn’t even asked the guy out yet – one kiss did not count dammit! – I had taken the time to sit down and think. So I planned. Prepared. Just in case.

Of course, I hadn’t thought the kidnapping would take place so soon!

So here I was getting shoved onto a cheap plastic folding chair, the kind you’d get from Home Depot or Walmart, which was way too low for me and left my knees up somewhere around my armpits as duct tape was wretched around my booted ankles and around the front feet of the chair. Not adding to my sense of personal comfort was bite of the handcuffs digging into my wrists or my back even through the leather of my duster. Happily, I hadn’t been gagged. Okay, admittedly because I had a plan and step one meant keeping my charming sense of smart-ass to myself.

I’d been Listening the entire trip, so I was hardly surprised when the blindfold was ripped away and I could see where I was. 

The freaking garage where I’d been taken on two previous kidnappings. 

_Goddammit._

Could I burn this place down? Or was this another of the multitude of properties that Marcone had sought out and bought? As far as I knew no one was doing anything with it. I may never have looked into it but since none of the Streetwolves ever sought out vengeance on my hide or had shown any sign of being around the last time I’ve been at this garage, I was almost certain Marcone had them all killed or he'd found a way to get them locked up. Considering what they were, I never could work up that much guilt over a pack of bloodthirsty lycanthropes no longer being a problem to me or anyone else in Chicago.

Actually, thinking Marcone possibly owned the place made me perk up. Even if I burned the place down, I had a pretty good feeling I would be able to get back into his good graces in no time.

Someone flipped on the lights and the glaring white fluoresce made me blink again as my eyesight adjusted and I took in the now dozen men scattered throughout the empty garage. 

All of them were carrying guns. Automatic assault rifles of the kind which made me want to gulp. 

Well, I couldn’t say they weren’t taking this seriously. They wanted me either really scared and intimidated or they wanted to be able to stop Marcone from taking me back if I was meant to be a hostage. Or both. Probably both. Both sounded more likely.

Although from what I could sense no one was standing behind me with a readily aimed gun at the back of my head which struck me as very stupid when holding a wizard. Well, that’s my good luck and their bad. 

“So you’re Gentleman Johnny Marcone’s piece on the side,” said a blond bastard with icy blue eyes, who’d actually be kinda good looking if it wasn’t for that sneer on his face. He was wearing a dark suit in typical mafioso fashion but to my own uneducated eyes it didn’t come close to approaching how impeccable, expensive and stylishly Marcone wore his suits. Blondie’s voice had a weird mix of Russian accent mixed with Jersey Shore which pinged oddly in my ear. I blinked again at the realization that whoever these guys were they weren’t from the Chicago crime scene. 

_Fuck_ , was the Russian mob trying to move in on Marcone? I flickered my eyes at the goons again, this time noting the very distinct tattoos that the Russians were known to favor mostly hidden by suits and Kevlar. I had to ignore the quiver of instinctive fear I felt in my gut at the thought of Russian mobsters. 

Okay, no more mobster movies in the future if this was the kind of impact they were going to have on me.

I focused and reminded myself that unless I wanted kidnapping by criminals to turn into a regular occurrence until one of these jerks just killed me I had exactly one shot to get this right. So I took grip of my galloping heart-rate and used a technique to relax the tendons of my hands. A departed friend had shown me how to get out of handcuffs once and I made it a point to keep practicing it. I ended up bound or cuffed way too often to let the knowledge of that particular trick fade away.

These handcuffs were your standard police kind made of steel. Which by the way, are super-easy to escape since they weren’t enhanced with of agonizing thorns which dig into my wrists every time I reached for my magic.

“Tall, skinny bastard, aren’t you? And not much to look at. Makes me wonder if the rumors about the two of you are even true.” The blond’s sneer grew even more contemptuous. “My name is Viktor Barinov.

Well, if I harbored any doubts about this guy knowing magic was a real thing which really existed that just got rid of them. 

I shot him my best look of contempt right back as I repeated his Name. “Viktor Barinov.” 

I hit him with his Name powered by my willpower. He staggered back so hard he went down on one knee. It made a painful sounding thwack as he hit the concrete floor. His blue eyes widened in shock and he stared at me. 

“What?” he croaked. 

Several of the hands pointing guns in my directions twitched. The more jumpy of the hitters shot at me.  
Fortunately I expected some of them to be trigger happy and I’d called up my shield. They may have taken my staff, blasting rod and gun but they’d left me everything else after frisking me for weapons.

So I activated my some of my force rings and hit them back. 

Oh _shit._ I realized almost too late that I was reacting with too much power and I had to grit my teeth to pull my kinetic punch before I hit them so hard I knocked them through the walls of the garage while smashing their internal organs into goo.

As it was the gunmen were slammed _hard_ with a wave of kinetic force and I heard more than a couple of bones snapping. Viktor was flattened onto his back. Half the lights popped with an impressive looking shower of electrical sparks as they died. 

I hid my wince. Dammit, I wasn’t used to fighting vanilla mortals anymore. I had to calibrate down before I accidentally killed them.

‘You can’t show them any fear.’ Murphy had said as she’d given me her best advice. ‘You know what predators are like.’

Yeah. I also couldn’t show mercy, or compassion, or even regret for hurting them. 

I had to scare them so damned badly they’d tell everyone and their mother stay the hell away from me.

That meant I had to channel every bit of ‘Harry the Evil Overlord steeped in the Dark Side’ shtick I could throw at these guys.

I took advantage of the goons’ eyes being off me as they groaned and recovered to rip away the tape from my boots. I also scattered three charmed items before me before I reaching into my duster to pulled a small plastic bottle. It was one of those cheap clear reusable ones which a lot stores sold in their travel section. 

It was full of a potion which I poured it out before me. Instantly, a red fog bloomed into existence. It spread out across the entire garage in a thick blanket about three inches high on the floor and leaving a faint red haze in the air. It glowed with a malevolent blood-rust color which had taken ages to get just right.

The curling mysterious red fog also let loose the faintest scent of warm wet iron or if you happened to be in frightened state of mind what smelled like fresh blood.

On my right wrist I spun a copper bracelet, infusing with enough will until it hummed. The sound was too low to be consciously audible to anyone else. It was my magic so I could hear it just fine if I concentrated. It took testing to make sure it would even work but the charmed bracelet let loose musical fear cues which I’d collected from various films. There’s a reason most horror movies use scary music to indicate the dangerous monster is around. It affects us at an emotional level, bypassing our logical thoughts and triggering unease and fear.

The spell on the bracelet would build a sense of dread without them even knowing what was happening as their subconscious heard the music.

Making the right impression is important, right? I definitely remember that advice from when I’d been job hunting when I got to Chicago before I settled into learning to be a gumshoe. I wanted these assholes to have a very vivid first impression of what a wizard could do. And for that I needed _atmosphere._

I returned to the chair these jerks had so helpfully provided for me. I tried to imagine it wasn’t a flimsy piece of furniture which felt like it would dump me on my ass with one careless move and instead pretended it was a throne. I ignored the niggling at the back at my mind which kept pointing out my dark jeans had a couple of holes in the knees, my t-shirt was getting rather threadbare and I could use a haircut. Instead I spread my legs wide in a deliberately careless sprawl, although my feet were planted on the floor in case I need to get up in a hurry. My burned left hand rested on my knee with my elbow out. I left my right hand loose, letting the copper bracelet spin free. I kept my back straight.

I also let my face settle into what my apprentice had called my epic resting bitchface.

Which, honestly, had sounded like a _bad_ thing when she’d first mentioned it to me. Apparently, when I wasn’t making any expression my face defaulted into a grim ‘I _will_ murder you if you piss me off’ look. I wasn’t happy about it, but well, I might as well play to my strengths.

Most of the goons were struggling slowly to their feet, their wide eyes locked on me and their hands tight on their guns. It looked like two of them were knocked out. I ignored how my guts twisted in worry at the thought that maybe I’d hit them too hard. I couldn’t do anything about it right now.

Viktor, whom I’d tried to only glance with the kinetic blow, was shaking off the dizziness, snarled at me and pulled out his overcompensating gun from the shoulder holster hidden underneath his suit jacket. 

I already had my shield up but I raised my right hand, spreading out my fingers in a gesture which conveyed as much boredom as I could project. This time the shield _caught_ the bullets in midair until all the bullets Viktor wasted hovered about two feet from me. I kept them there for several seconds so that all the Russian mobsters could see them before I dropped the bullets down to the floor.

The slow clung-clung-clung of the bullets hitting the concrete was surprisingly loud.

“Do that again and you won’t like what I’ll do in response,” I said in my best cold tone. The surviving garage lights flickered ominously.

 _Nice._ I hadn’t even done that on purpose.

Viktor, of course, didn’t listen and he yelled an order for his men to fire.

So I stomped my right foot and crunched flat one of the scattered charms. 

What looked like white lighting bolts fanned out from underneath my boot, blew through the red fog and collided with all the men before they could do anything. Agonized screamed rent the air. 

Some of the men pissed themselves. Others vomited.

Nausea rolled hard in my stomach and I had to fight to keep my face uncaring and bored. Only the knowledge that I hadn’t actually hit and burned them with electricity kept me on my seat. I hadn’t dared risk it. Who knew if one of them had a weak heart or some other medical condition? 

So instead I’d hit them with some my own memories of times I’ve been hurt. I hadn’t even slammed them with the worst of it.

Hell, was my sense of pain really so skewed that what I thought was moderate agony reduced grown mobsters to curled up balls of torment?

I tucked that questioned away for later. Or never. Either would work.

I project my voice over the lingering whimpers. “That was your only warning.”

From the floor where he had fallen Viktor looked up at me. He was wide-eyed again and pale, yet there was a wild anger in his eyes which told me I wasn’t done yet. Hell, I was kinda impressed he was still fighting. From what I could see on the defeated expressions on most of the guys behind him they looked ready to run.

“Viktor Barinov,” I said again, hitting Viktor with a lower grade of willpower which made him shudder. “You know, when you extended your all-so-generous invitation to join you for a meeting I thought I would be vastly more entertained than I am now. I’m disappointed. Johnny certainly manages it a lot better than this,” I sneered at Viktor even as part of me grimaced at the thought of calling Marcone ‘Johnny’ out loud. How in the hell had that ever been a nickname for him in first place? He was as much a ‘Johnny’ as I was a ‘Harold’. 

Mob nicknames. Right.

I crunched underfoot another charm and using the power telling me his Name from his own lips had given me, I raised my right hand and brought Viktor to his feet.

I could see the fear in his face grow as the realization that he’d lost control of his body hit him. 

Sympathy tugged at me and nearly made me stop the whole charade but I gritted my teeth and kept going.

I made him spin slowly so that he had a clear view of his guys behind him. He needed to see their faces. It need to sink in to him how they’d given up. Also I wanted those men in turn to absorb the fact I’d made their boss into my meat puppet. I made my hand gestures grand even if the control was actually all in my fingers. 

I made him spin twice more before settling back to face me.

He was still managing to hold onto his gun with a white-knuckled grip. I considered making him drop it but I already felt pretty lousy over how much I was scaring these guys. I wasn’t about to take away a criminal’s security Teddy-gun. Especially since it was empty.

Before I released the puppetry spell I made Viktor walk closer to me before I dropped him down to his knees about where I’d left the scattered spent bullets. I saw a couple digging into his knees in ways that were going to leave marks but he didn’t dare move away from where I’d left him.

The lingering anger was now gone and the man looked thoroughly terrified.

“I don’t give a fuck who _you_ are,” I told Viktor bluntly. “I really don’t. I do however care that you’re wasting my time with this pointless bullshit.” I kept my voice low and murderous. Hmm, maybe I needed to infuse a bit more psycho into it?

Now here’s something I never thought I’d be asking myself: What would my godmother do?

“Now, normally I’d just take _care_ of you myself,” I said, glancing all the hitters with a disinterested glance, letting them fill in the gap on what I meant by that on their own. It was kinda funny how the imagination of professional killers worked. They barely had to use it to come up with the worse possible scenario for themselves. Hell, they’d probably _been_ the causes of it for other people.

The thought tamped down on my growing sympathy.

“But I like to keep Johnny in a good mood. He does get so upset when I go about destroying his allies and coworkers because they’ve annoyed me,” I continued. I turned back to look at Viktor. “You _are_ coworkers with him, right?” I asked politely. 

Viktor nodded slowly.

“But not allies,” I said thoughtfully, like it only just occurred to me. I slowly stood off the chair, unfolding myself to my full height and I took a step towards Viktor, letting a predatory smile grow on my face. 

“We could be!” Viktor blurted out, panicked as I was less than a foot away.

“Oh,” I said carelessly as I began to pace around him. I pretended I was a slowly circling shark and one that could at any moment take a vicious biting chunk out of Viktor out of idle curiosity to see if he was food.

The theme for Jaws may or may not have started humming from the copper bracelet on my wrist.

“If you let us go, I can talk to my father and my brothers! They’ll listen to me I swear,” said Viktor, shuddering as I vanished out of his sight behind him. “Marcone has been wanting to set up a meet… I can – I can make it happen. They can work out a deal.”

“Hmm,” I said noncommittally. “I _do_ like to keep Johnny sweet,” I said, even as part of me wanted to giggle hysterically at the thought of Marcone being ‘sweet’. Okay, way too much Lea. Time to tone it down.

I stopped in front of Viktor and glared down at him, keeping my gaze away from his eyes. He helped. He didn’t want to look at me any more than I wanted to get caught in a soulgaze with him. 

I considered booting flat him to the ground by reined it it. The man was beaten. There was no reason to grind him into paste too. 

“But there is something I want you to keep in mind, Viktor Barinov.” I didn’t even use any power with his name that time but he still reacted as if I had, shuddering before me. “I don’t _work_ for Gentleman Johnny Marcone. He doesn’t own me. He doesn’t _control_ me.” My voice was hard and dark. Not acting required here.

I continued, “If you piss me off again it won’t matter how buddy-buddy you get with him.” I called up my ball-of-sunshine and had it hover several inches before Viktor’s face. The blazing sunlight threw stark shadows all over the garage. 

Viktor flinched away from the light and the heat he had to feeling all along his skin.

“It won’t matter to me how much he gets upset, I will find you and I will _burn_ everything you know to the ground. Do you understand me?” I asked quietly.

“Y-Yes.”

I turned around to sit back on my pretend throne, my little sun followed and hovered in a blaze of light about two feet above my head. I looked over at the other mob guys. I pointed at one that looked to be the steadiest on his feet. “My staff. My rod. My gun.” I snapped my fingers of my right hand. “Now!”

He scrambled out. 

Viktor had made it to his feet. He looked dazed. Then to my dismay I saw him shoot me a look of dawning awe even through his lingering terror. I wanted to grimace. It just made me think on how awe and awful had an etymological link for a reason.

The goon who’d gone to grab my stuff came back and froze at the door as he’d just had the realization that if he was going to deliver them it meant he’d have to get closer. To me.

I suspected he’d rather shoot himself in the foot than take another step in my direction. 

But that was alright. 

I crunched the last charm under my foot. My staff, blasting rod and gun began glowing a purple so dark it touched the edges of black. The goon recoiled and dropped them. My things floated through the air and landed in my hands. I tucked my blasting rod and gun away into my duster before I thumped my staff on the concrete floor. 

I didn’t actually let me awareness of the Russian mobsters drift away from them as I made a show of studying whether or not my staff had been damaged by grubby criminal fingers.

I looked up slowly to see that they were now all standing around – although a few had to be helped up by the less injured – and found them staring at me. 

“Why are you still _here_?” I scowled, a growl in my voice.

At once they got the hell out. A couple of the more protective goons bracketed Viktor and swept him away. I kept my scowling expression on my face until I could hear two cars engines turn on, and then the squeal of tires at they put pedal to the metal and tore away as fast as they could.

Only then did I let my hands tremble, my head drop and my belly quiver with the fear I’d shoved away to deal with later. 

Holy crap. I survived.

I gave myself a couple of minutes to shake before I climbed back up to my feet, manfully ignoring how the adrenaline rush was giving me kittenish weak knees and forced myself to stride out of the garage. 

The bastards hadn’t even offered to give me a ride back to my car. 

I had a long walk ahead of me. 

As I walked, I thought about how this whole shitshow had proved one thing to me. I could survive the crime side of Marcone’s life. Hell, if they were already coming out of the woodwork to get me then maybe I should get more than one kiss out of it. 

Maybe it was time I cowboyed up and asked the man out. 

I checked my pockets for change, realizing I didn’t actually have enough to make a call even if I’d managed to find a payphone. I sighed. 

Okay. Tomorrow, I resolved. Tomorrow, I’d call up John Marcone and ask him if he was still willing to go out on a date with me.

Somehow I didn’t think he’d say no.

End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: … I think a part of me is missing writing Evil!Harry because this was way too much fun.


	2. Post Credits Scene

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a post credits scene that would not leave my head.

They were halfway to the private airport where a jet was fueled and waiting for them for when they'd finished with their mission – so fucking FUBAR that it wasn’t even funny – when the boss said the words they’d all been dreading.

“Wow,” said Viktor, sounding dazed. “Marcone is fucking _that._ ”

Alexei, (2nd in command to Viktor’s unit) and Dimitri (3rd in command) exchanged despairing glances because they knew exactly what those words combined with that tone meant when it came from the boss.

“No. No, boss,” Alexei tried to interject. “No. He nearly killed us all. 13 to 1 and he kicked our asses.”

It didn’t help. Viktor only got more glazed over. _“Wow.”_

Dimitri and the others glared at Alexei who winced and tried again. “Boss. Boss. Remember what happened last time. Natalia nearly cut off your balls with your own knife. This guy–” Alexei swallowed in remembered terror and his hands shook, “this guy’ll burn them off!”

They lost him. 

The boss was stupid for anything, _anyone_ dangerous. The more psycho and dangerous the better as far as his dick was concerned. 

Dimitri’s shoulder still occasionally twinged in pain from the number of times Natalia had stabbed him when he’d tackled her off the boss.

“I mean, Marcone’s old, right? Fucking a guy so old can’t be that interesting,” their boss asked, lost in his sexual madness which was going to get them all killed. “There’s no way he’d have the kind of stamina to satisfy a guy like _that_.” Here the boss went incoherent and glazed all over again. 

Dimitri shuddered. If John Marcone was voluntarily letting his dick anywhere near that – that leather clad freak of nature then he was crazier than the boss. Which, fuck, actually explained lot of the rumors they’d been hearing from Chicago over the last few years.

“Do you think he’d like chocolates?”

Oh, shit. _Oh, shit._ They were going to die.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was laughing too much at the Russian mob guys after finishing the story when my brain said: What if Viktor fell is lust with scary!Harry?  
> Then I proceeded to wheeze with laughter and write out some of it.


End file.
